The Millionaire Next Door

Job Search: Cold Call the Millionaire Next Door

Has your job search been unsuccessful?  Perhaps you are using the wrong strategy.  What should you do when the herd of millions of job seekers is all e-mailing its credentials to prospective employers every day?  “Don’t follow the herd.”   Begin to do things differently by using your courage, tenacity and creative intellect.


Recently I reconnected with T.C. whom I profiled in my first book, Marketing to the Affluent, aka marketing to the millionaire next door.  Today he is a very successful investment manager with over 300 wealthy clients.  Most of his clientele are of the millionaire next door type.  How did T.C. get from ground zero (having no clients) to where he is today? 


Nearly all of his early client base came from his so-called cruise method of prospecting.  In essence he cold called countless blue collar type millionaires at their places of business.   T.C. told me that he was applying for the job of “manager of pension funds”. 


. . . [he identified] such owners by driving through industrial areas and business districts and looking for the names of businesses. . . with the name like Roberts’ Tool and Dye or Peterson’s Construction Machinery Company, T.C. assumed that the business was probably owned and operated by a Mr. Roberts or a Mr. Peterson.


In a similar vein, another respondent told me:


My main target is the business owner.  Often, before dawn, I look while cruising for buildings that are ideally in low rent commercial areas . . . .  This tells me that the owner doesn’t throw his money around, that he has money in his pocket, not in the rugs, office rent, wallpaper and office equipment.  . . .  chances are very high that I have located someone with lots of money.  He is probably wealthy not only because of his business revenue but also because he is frugal as hell.


It takes courage to make such cold calls.  Yet nearly all millionaire next door types have courage and admire it in others.  One of the greatest sales professionals, entrepreneurs and millionaires next door was Ray Kroc, the major force behind the success of McDonald’s (see John F. Love’s Behind the Arches).  Kroc used the courage dimension in selecting prospective employees including executives and franchise owners.  He instructed his secretary to send in cold callers rather than turn them away. 


Cold callers who prospected Kroc included some of  ‘the most important hires McDonald’s made . . . Robert Ryan, McDonald’s treasurer, and Richard Boylan, senior executive vice president and chief financial officer. . . two [cold calling] life insurance salesmen [who] walked into McDonald’s to sell life insurance.’ [Behind the Arches]  But instead of selling life insurance and estate planning they bought the McDonald’s concept.


Both Ryan and Boylan secured their jobs because they had the courage and tenacity to make countless cold calls.

1 thought on “Job Search: Cold Call the Millionaire Next Door”

  1. Great post Dr. Stanley! In my “spare” time I am a Dave Ramsey certified financial counselor as well as a career coach. Your recommendation to call upon The Millionaires Next Door is the same advice I have given many of my career coaching clients. Yes, some have followed through and have been successful, but as you pointed out, it takes courage.

    In my experience you need to be dealing with someone that has had that “aha!” moment for them to understand how money and/or landing a job in today’s market works and to follow through with counsel. I think most of your readers had that “aha” moment when they first read The Millionaire Next Door. For me, it meant that I wasn’t crazy living the way I do financially. Similarly I had that same “aha” moment in my career. I learned that having the courage to seek out mentors and ask for guidance goes a long way in furthering your career and opens doors that you didn’t even know existed. You’re advice to seek out local, small to mid-size business owners is indeed the greatest secret out there in the job market today!

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